23 



Conditions of growth and seed formation are so many and so varied 

 tbat what may be true for one locality will often not apply to another 

 which is far distant. 



RELIABILITY OF SPECIMENS AND SAMPLING. 



The question has been raised as to whether any specimen or sample 

 of wheat would represent the average composition of a field or large 

 crop, or of a large mass of wheat in elevator, for instance, and whether 

 the analyses of the specimens which have been examined in this and 

 previous reports could be relied on on this account. 



An attempt has been made to solve this question, and with satisfac- 

 tory results. In Bulletin No. 1 of this division analyses are given of 

 two samples of wheat from the same lot of grain purchased by the De- 

 partment as seed, the one selected in 1881 and the other in 1882, and 

 analyzed without it being known to any one that they were intended to 

 be identical. The results were closer than would probably be the case 



in most sampling. 



Red Mediterranean iclieat. 



To decide as to variations in composition in different parts of the 

 same field and of the same farm, and of different varieties on the same 

 farm and of differently developed heads and sized kernels of the same 

 variety, personal selections were made from a wheat farm in Carroll 

 County, Maryland, belonging to Mr. Alastair P. Gordon-dimming. 



The specimens may be described as follows, with a determination of 

 albuminoids a point which, it was believed, will settle any large varia- 

 tion in composition : 



From a field of Fult?, bottom land, best quality. 



From twenty-two average heads were selected : 



